Wine Diet... Again

"Half a bottle of wine a day?"

I think this is a norm for for France, Italy and Spain (on average, 2 to 3 glasses a day).

I have heard that two glasses of wine a day for men and one a day for women was the most you were supposed to consume to get the maximum benefit. Sounds like another fad diet to me...eat fruit, berries, nuts, chocolate, and wine. Yeah, real balanced. Where's the meat? Vegetables? Eggs? At least you can be sure you're giving your liver a good workout with this one :P

Hmmmm the problem with that is that drinking wine leads to disinhibition. And disinhibition leads to increased eating, promiscuity and other undesirable side effects!

When you drink your self control is lowered and you are more likely to nibble chips and nuts and pretzels or say yes to an extra helping of food.

And then there are all calories in wine...

procyanidins are abundant in some young red wines, and also in cranberries and chocolate.

So why doesn't he recommend a handful of cranberries instead?

Of course 'The Chocolate Diet' would be a runaway bestseller.

Sounds like another fad diet to me...eat fruit, berries, nuts, chocolate, and wine. Yeah, real balanced.

Amazing isn't it - here's a guy who researched in Sardinia and southern France, who found their diets heavy with saturated fat, meats, etc.

From the article:

"There was no evidence base for saying that low-fat diets are good for you, and I could see that these people living in a mountainous region of Sardinia didn't have a low-fat diet. And they didn't have a Mediterranean diet because they were too far from the sea. I realised that they had a habit of perhaps not eating a great deal but of eating a diet that we would think of as unhealthy - a lot of meat, cheese, pasta and wine."

After Sardinia, Corder looked at the so-called "French paradox" - why the French have a comparatively low rate of heart disease despite their love of fatty food - and discovered that it was more specifically a south-west France paradox.

Here, life expectancy was far higher than in the rest of France, and, significantly, the prevaling diet is not a supposedly healthy Mediterranean one but heavy in unhealthy foods such as cassoulet and foie gras. "

....and he still can't bring himself to recommend what these folks really eat....instead the "nutrition plan leans heavily towards fruit, vegetables, nuts and berries, and away from sugar and saturated fats."

OK

:::shaking my head:::

Half a bottle of wine a day is not the norm even in France, I can tell you. even if the benefits or drinking red wine are real, it is still full of sugar and it is not recommended at least in the first stage of a strict diet.

Talia Mana, Health Psychologist said:
the problem with that is that drinking wine leads to disinhibition[...]

Trouble is, most people I know (of ALL ages) no longer know how to have one drink. They only know how to get hammered / trolleyed / totalled / wasted / whatever - or they'll drink enough to numb the pain or stress of life... then say and do things that end up causing more pain or stress.

Four weeks ago I made a decision to go alcohol-free. I'm not knocking anyone's personal choices - but I'm tired of seeing social havoc.

It's also kinda fun watching people almost have a fit when I decline a drink :-)

I've been drinking half a bottle a day for years.

I've found that drinking, even 1 glass very rarely, makes my psoriasis flare up, so now I don't even have the 1 glass of champagne at a wedding or on NYE.

My husband and I like red wine very much, and we control it as much as we can without suffering, but we usually end up having about 1 bottle every other day.

He traveled all over France and Italy and he said everywhere he went people were having one or two glasses of wine at lunch, then at least two glasses in the evening. He stayed with families and he travelled around farms visiting people in their homes.

We have been doing this for over 20 years and we are both in very good health. I get tired of red wine but I can't see having a beer when there are no health benefits to beer drinking at all. Having no wine to us is almost like having no fruit, or no meat. We could do it but until someone really says it's not good for us we will probably keep drinking it. Everything we have read points to moderate consumption for a healthy long life. People who drink moderately live longer than those who don't drink at all.

I don't drink and lost a lot of weight so weight loss can be done without.

Talia Mana, Health Psychologist I agree why not eat some cranberries of fresh grapes and I agree with the disinhibition effect. I know a lot of people on weigh watchers who will binge eat after binge drinking.

Wine contains alcohol and alcohol stresses the body, it is never healthy.

It would be good if people would stop making up diets that offer what people want instead of offering what is necessary.

Especially annoying is the whole story with beer and wine. Both of these are promoted from time to time as sources of nutrients. Im sure there are SOME nutrients in them, but these are hardly a good source or the only source. And the effects of alcohol are definitely not a necessary sacrifice for consumption of these nutrients.

Doesn't alcohol inhibit fat metabolism? Oh, and don't forget that Southern Europe ranks very high in icidences of liver diseases. Sure, their hearts may be fine. It doesn't mean the rest of them is OK!

And if you want ehe specific grape antioxidants without alcohol, you can buy pure grape juice. I get the unsweetened undiluted stuff and drink a cup almost everyday.

I was just reading some articles about the benefits of red wine and in almost every article it says grapes also have the same compounds. It makes you wonder why they are focusing on red wine in particular.

In France the rate of heart disease is less than half of ours, and it is attributed to wine consumption, but couldn't it be that the French eat butter and olive oil instead of trans fats? It would make sense after looking at the new study that says less than a teaspoon of transfats/1000 calories results in a 300% increase in heart disease.

I agree with Jan, why not just drink grape juice instead of red wine? It's best to avoid getting into the habit if possible.

dela said:
I agree with Jan, why not just drink grape juice instead of red wine? It's best to avoid getting into the habit if possible.

Because there's not much reservatrol in grape juice.

But, then, why not just eat peanuts?
http://www.peanut-institute.org/Resveratrol_PR.html

Jim! Good choice and good luck!! I believe alcohol is a poison! If you want the benefits of grapes, eat a grape! It's a skin thing! Also, I lived in France during my training. They ate much less and were more active then people in the USA. They did inform 'the non-drinking' American, however, that wine was for drinking and water was for bathing! :-)

If the resvetrarol is your only concern, then only wine made from muscadine grapes has a significant amount, and still, eating the grape skins (even of non-muscadine grapes) gives you MORE revestrarol.

I quote, from Wikipedia:
The amount of resveratrol in food substances varies greatly. Ordinary non-muscadine Red wine contains between 0.2 and 5.8 mg/L [1], depending on the grape variety, whilst white wine has much less - the reason being that red wine is fermented with the skins, allowing the wine to absorb the resveratrol, whereas white wine is fermented after the skin has been removed. Wines produced from muscadine grapes, however, both red and white, may contain more than 40 mg/L.[2]. [2]

Fresh grape skin contains about 50 to 100 micrograms of resveratrol per gram.[3]

I agree with the peanut suggestion though, and even though grape juice has less, the advantage is with both the juice and peanuts, you can eat/drink a larger amount, so in the end it wouldn't really matter.

Hey - what's wrong with drinking wine? It's my favorite 4-letter word!!

Hmmmm the problem with that is that drinking wine leads to disinhibition. And disinhibition leads to increased eating, promiscuity and other undesirable side effects!

Whaaat? It's not the wine, but excessive amounts that 'may' lead to what you mentioned, dear because of lowered inhibitions - which also counts toward lack of control in general be it food or whatever. The way you put it, it sounds as if drinking wine WILL lead to etc. etc. etc. ;>D

All things in moderation.

By the way - to all the speculation about how Europeans drink wine. It is like anywhere, some drink more, some less, some not at all, some ONLY with meals. Here in Spain, drinking wine without food 'just is not done'. They consider it stupid because obviously the alcohol goes to the head and that eating something with wine is the logical pairing. They are always astounded at the tourists who come here and tip it in on its own.

Wine is a form of alcohol yes but all alcohols are not created equal. Some schools of thought abolish all alcohols, even eating ripe bananas, because it is a 'poison'. So is digitalis, but it has it benefits. Wine, drunk in moderation has its well documented benefits too.

And ah...there are lots of things that lead to promiscuity. Of the least is wine.

Me, I manage probably half a bottle a week. Sometimes a little more, or less...or none at all.

The onset of bar code scanning at supermarkets allowed researchers to come at the alcohol-health issue from a different direction. A study in the Netherlands broke up shoppers into four groups: beer buyers, wine buyers, no alcohol, and beer & wine. Between the beer and wine, they found that the beer buyers bought rather unheathy food and the wine buyers healthy food. There have been similar studies in California and France. So another correlation/causation fallacy?

A recent study from Harvard attempted to factor this stuff out, and still concluded that red wine seemed to be good. But that's just a single study so far.

Mark said:
Between the beer and wine, they found that the beer buyers bought rather unheathy food and the wine buyers healthy food. There have been similar studies in California and France. So another correlation/causation fallacy?[...]

Yes, another fallacy. What about people that eat healthy and buy healthy food, but have a spouse that drinks beer? I fill my cart with healthy foods and beer all the time. I enjoy a beer every now and then as well. Alcohol can be a part of any diet, just like any other "treat". You just have to use moderation. I feel that 2 glasses of wine a day would be more than moderate for me, considering I get tipsy on just one glass of wine :P

Spectra, you made a very good point. When I go to the market, my cart pretty much only has diet soda, meat and chicken, canned pasta sauce, and large amounts of potato chips. Based on that, you'd think I'm the worst eater ever. I get my grains, fruit, whole-wheat bread, nuts, cottage cheese, eggs, and vegetables at the farmer's market, my fish at the fishmonger's, and the whole-wheat pasta for that sauce at the health food store. And the chips? My husband just can't stop eating them, he loves them, which works out great for me since they are not a junk food I ever cared for.

I think a lot of you should just relax a bit, and enjoy life. Stop worring if your gonna live an extra few years from drinking wine. I'm 45 healthy, never ill eat lots of fruit, veg and drink about 1 bottle of red wine a day.

I think most of you will shorten your life just by worrying about whats good for you or not, stop stressing and relax, put your feet up with your favorite wine and live!!!

Patrick- I agree that we should relax and live, and that is why we drink too, but sometimes I get tired of seeing my husband toddling around with that stupid wine glass all evening like a prima donna! I like a little toughness in life too, you know, the yin and yang! If I drink wine everyday I start feeling like I need to toughen up more.

As usual the subject of wine and alcohol stirs up heated debate. Health benefits of wine have been proven but drinking it is not right for everyone. As I stated in my book "The California Wine Country Diet", if we choose to drink wine it is important that we also look honestly at our ability to "consciously indulge." The same is true for many of the foods we love. Unless we have a compulsive or addictive pattern with a certain food or beverage, long term weight management is usually more successful when we regularly enjoy in moderation the foods and beverages that give us pleasure.

1 bottle a day is way too much. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be judgemental, but yes, I guess I'm being judgemental. I'd call that a drinking problem. Anyone that won't go a day without drinking to me has a drinking problem.

Jan, I can assure you I don’t have a drink problem, I just enjoy red wine. Drinking does not interfere with my daily life, and if need be I could go without a drink! But I don’t want to, I enjoy it.

Cheers

Patrick, I'm happy to hear that. I've known a large share of what I'd call "heavy drinkers" or "people with a drinking problem" - I differentiate that from alcoholics cause these aren't people that have their lives affected negatively by alcohol, although they are consuming large amounts. I think they just don't have addictive personalities.

It was presumptuous of me to assume you couldn't go a day without, and I also don't know your size, since alcohol amounts are proportional to a person's size too. I am sorry for that.

I read somewhere that 5 oz of red wine a day was beneficial to your health, 10 oz negated the benefits and 15 or more oz's was detrimental... not that I always stick to 5 oz mind you. It's just a guide!

Lonnie said:
I read somewhere that 5 oz of red wine a day was beneficial to your health, 10 oz negated the benefits and 15 or more oz's was detrimental... not that I always stick to 5 oz mind you. It's just a guide![...]

How much is 5oz of wine??? you got to weigh it aswell now??

Patrick--It's 5 fluid ounces, you don't have to weigh it. 5 fluid ounces is about one wine glass of wine...approximately 3/4 cup.

Whenever I drink wine, my gout flares up again. Any suggestions?

Bill - don't drink wine?

Whenever I drink anything, my psoriasis flares up, and psoriasis is not half as painful as gout. So I just don't drink anymore.

If anything bad happens to you when you eat or drink something, the solution is just not to drink it or eat it.

Most ot the time when I drink red wine I wake up with a sore head, dry mounth, and I feel very sluggish. I think your right Jan I need to cut down to a more sensible level of consumption, Given it some thought, and the New Year means a new me no more than 2 glasses a day.

Have a Great Christmas

Patrick

2 glasses seems to be what doctors recommend for the antioxidant properties, for men, and 1 glass for women, anyway.

I'm right there with you with new year's promises. I am going to seriously cut down on caffeine. I have never managed to have caffeine but only at a decent level, I have always either quit it cold turkey, or quickly started having huge amounts. So that is my goal for this year.

I am 55 years of age. I am fit and tan. I lved in Spain from the age of 16 to 22. It was in Spain that I got into the habit of drinking a bottle of wine with my evening meal. I have never lost this habit. I enjoy wine, almonds, and cheese- the hard variety. I don't like soft cheese. I also eat fish. I eat an enormous amount of raw fish. I have lived in Japan for the last ten years and I credit my good health to the diet here. Fish, tofu, miso soup and vegetables. However, I still drink my wine. My doctor a man of 77 drinks a prodigious amount of sake. I think smoking is unhealthy but I am not convinced that drinking causes one to die early. Japanese men drink an enormous amount; yet, they live longer than western males. We all die; don't smoke is the only advice I would give anyone regarding long live. it seems a lottery in many respects.

Why is wine better than grapes or juice? Aside from the high sugar content of grapes, which may be a concern with those predispose to diabetes, there is some evidence that alcohol may extract more of the healty stuff in grape skins than juicing does (I'm not going to name the 'healthy stuff', as there is still debate about what it actually is). Just think that most of the herbal tinctures were alcohol based. Drinking teas and juice seem to have caught up more in our alocohol phobic society. Furthermore some authors suggest that alcohol may act synergistically with other grape components. We should remember that this whole debate started from the discovery of the so called french paradox. The french were NOT taking resveratrol pills or drinking juice or eating other fruits that may contain the same substances. They ARE drinking wine. Again and again when science hands us shortcuts to otherwise traditional, healthy habits, it fails. The main concern that I see, as it was mentioned in another post, is that liver disease tends to be more prevalent also in the mediteranean population. But this can have many alternative explanations, as hepatitis virus is more common in these countries. Of course anyone with liver disease needs to be extra careful with alcohol.
Another problem with this diet is the high content of potentially allergenic foods, so one needs to be aware of that fact as well.

I can not resist joining in...the food habits revolve around the availability in the region and the body adjusts to the local incredients..what is good for people in one region need not be as good for others in other regions. what I believe is that finally what matters is the basket of food you eat and not just the ones and twos you pick..Aztec, I was told had 1200 varieies in their food basket, so is the food basket in my region, south India. Every month is a season for few food varieties and the society around you has evolved a tradition to eat them in multiple way, raw, cooked, pickled, what you have and in moderate quantities..and finally, eat and drink what you like and I suppose the answer to the health lies there!

Kelly said:
I've been drinking half a bottle a day for years.[...]

I ENJOY RED WINE, SOMETIMES 1 GLASS SOMETIMES 2, SOMETIMES HALF A BOTTLE AND YES I HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO POLISH OFF A WHOLE BOTTLE, ONLY AT WEEKENDS THOUGH, NOT TO OFTEN.

I WORK WELL, MUM WELL AND EAT EXSTREAMLY WELL!! MEANING HEALTHY, LOTS OF FISH LOADS OF VEG, SOYA NO DAIRY PRODUCTS. I DON'T DRINK CAFFIEN AT ALL AND NO ALCOHOL DURING THE DAY, I LOVE THE FEELING OF BEING COMPESS MENTI!!!LOL.

I CONSIDER MY SELF WELL BALANCED AND IM SURE WE ALL HAVE A BIT OF ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOR IN US ALL, I AM 42 WITH A GOOD FIG AND I AGREE FOR THOSE THAT LIKE A GLASS OR 2 OR 3 ENJOY IF IT DOESN'T EFFECT YOUR LIFE AND THERE ARN'T ANY CONSEQUENCES ENJOY!!!

I have read all the posts on the benefits of wine. I eat fairly well, fish etc. stay away from fried foods and watch desserts. I go on cruises and lose weight. As for red wine, I will drink a couple of glasses a couple of times a week and sometimes, a bottle or more on a Saturday night. I have had 3 close friends watch all they eat, drink lots of water and die from heart attacks at age fifty. It is hereitary guys, have fun, drink some good wine, life is way too short. You don't have to be rich to drink good wine, many under $12 are fantastic. Jesus turned water into wine, not wine into water.